Fault Tolerant stacking is desirable to customers because it increases network availability. For example, low-cost Ethernet 10/100 Switches are sometimes stacked in a wiring closet as a low cost solution. However all of the fault tolerant stacking designs to date employ two active ports on every switch to create a loop plus an additional one or two active ports for uplinks. Low-cost Ethernet 10/100 switches only have two uplink ports. One of the uplink ports on the top and the bottom of the stack are used for fiber or copper connections, therefore they are not available for creating a fault tolerant stacking loop with uplinks.
A fault-tolerant stack requires that a loop be created. FIG. 1A depicts an existing topology for such a stack comprised of switches having first and second uplink ports 40 and 42. Note that the second uplink port 42 of the bottom switch is connected to first uplink port 40 of the top switch to form a loop. If one of the switches fails then signals can be routed around the failed switch using the loop. Note however that because both uplink ports of each switch are used to form the fault-tolerant stacking topology there are no uplink ports available to form an uplink with the next level in the network hierarchy.
FIG. 1B depicts the same stack having fault-tolerant fiber uplinks to the next level of the network hierarchy. Since one port of the top and bottom switches are used to form the uplink to the next level these ports are not available to form a fault-tolerant loop within the stack.
The challenges in the field of stacking low-cost Ethernet switches continue to increase with demands for more and better techniques having greater flexibility and adaptability. Therefore, a need has arisen for a new system and method for providing low-cost, fault-tolerant solutions.